


in the stillness of remembering what you once had

by orphan_account



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Asian Character(s), Character Study, Class Issues, Coming Out, Coming of Age, Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Internalized Homophobia, Introspection, M/M, Misogyny, Non-Linear Narrative, Sort Of, Underage Drinking, abuse of stevie nicks in both the title and text, i listened to a LOT of magnetic fields while writing this one ladies, lmao what plot, sort of., the teen serpents are all so cool i feel like im finally being watered after the blandness of s1, though its really not that central to the plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 04:12:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16468481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: when sweet pea is younger, he breaks his wrist, and other assorted stories(wherein sweet pea is a fifteen piece puzzle he doesn't really remember how to put back together)





	in the stillness of remembering what you once had

**Author's Note:**

> i didnt edit this. at all. but i did however listen to exactly six songs on loop while writing this. and they are:
> 
> dreams - fleetwood mac, liar - queen, i dont believe you - magnetic fields, i think i need a new heart- magnetic fields, biting down - lorde, and you make lovin fun - fleetwood mac.

(i.)

sweet pea fell from a swing set once when he was younger.

he can’t remember exactly when it was, because second grade both times and then third have all faded together in his memory, but it was back when he was still peter but fangs and toni were already fangs and toni, so he must have been at least ten. because back then they three were a hivemind in the way all childhood friends were-- people had already changed their names from peter, fangs, and toni to  _ peterfangstoni  _ when they had to call them in-- they were all waiting in the same place after school. but waiting for mr fogarty to get done with his shift at the dry cleaners was boring, so they drifted to the block of park in the southside that wasn’t crawling with teenagers. at some point the lamarre twins had spotted them, and roped them into a game of showing each other up.

seth lamarre had pulled himself up to sit on top of the broken swing set, chest puffed out to hide the fact that he was nervous as all shit. toni looked unimpressed, more interested in insisting she could climb higher on the slide, but fangs was vibrating with excitement. he was such a twerp when he was younger.

it wasn’t even that hard to get up there, sweet pea remembers thinking, because he could see how seth had just grabbed the remains of a chain swing and pulled himself up. if seth could do it, sweet pea could do it, because the presidential fitness test put him in “above average” for his age.

birdbrain lamarre had grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back before he could even take a step forward.

“don’t follow him up there, pete,” birdbrain said snidely. he was two or three years older than sweet pea, and about three inches shorter, because sweet pea had always been one tall bastard, “he’s just showin off trying to get called ‘swingset’ or ‘jackass’ or somethin.”

which was probably true. in the southside, nicknames made you who you were, meant that you had done something worth remembering. worth being given something to call you. fangs had bit their kindergarten teacher so hard it scarred a little. toni was short for antonia, and saying “cool it antonia” every time she mouthed off was too much. birdbrain, last month, had ran head first into a pole while playing street soccer. 

seth hadn’t done anything nickname worthy yet, but neither had peter, so he said he might as well try to claim ‘swingset’ first. and he told birdbrain as much.

he shrugged, letting him go with a bit of a shake. “your funeral.” it was a bit awkward that even back then, birdbrain was probably the smartest kid in the southside. but sweet pea didn’t know it back then, and wouldn’t have listened even if he did, so he just went off to the swing set with a scowl high on his features.   


“dude, are you really gonna--” fangs started, whipping his head from seth re-gaining his balance to focus on sweet pea, which filled him with a warmth in his chest, the fire of determination. toni just shook her head, but came over to watch anyway, cheering him on when seth laughed in his face.

“ain’t no problem for him, he’s taller than the frickin bar anyway.” toni said, because she was four foot flat and jealous. 

“cool it, toni.” birdbrain said, because he was five foot two and three quarters, so thus superior. 

sweet pea had one moment of anxiety before he grabbed the chain, pulled as hard as he could, and braced his feet against the metal support beam of the swing set to walk himself up. when he wrapped his legs around the cross beam, where the chain was hanging from and where the seth was sitting on, fangs and toni cheered. birdbrain whistled. 

sweet pea pulled himself up right, sitting precariously on top of the cross beam, and for a moment felt weightless as his stomach re-settled. toni and fangs and the southside park looked so small beneath him, and if he looked straight up he could see the clouds a little bit better, and everything felt so exhilarating for that moment he let out a loud whoop.

and then promptly fell, right on his wrist.

good things never really stuck with sweet pea.

(ii.)

he lives with his brother and sister once mom’s trip to some rehab in greendale sticks. z is eight years older than him, three years older than tammie, and technically-illegally rents an apartment above the galazara’s as a minor, but it’s whatever.

z also joins the serpents when sweet pea’s nine and a half. tammie learns how to sew up human skin on his initiation night while sweet pea watches from the doorway. 

“take these, sweets” z says, because sweet pea had became sweet pea a while ago by then. he tosses something hard and cold at sweet pea, which he barely fumbles to catch. “i sure as shit don’t fucking want em.” tammie clucks at him for the language and the disruption of her work, and he kicks her in the knee. siblings. sweet pea examines what he’s just been tossed, feels them out before he squints to see them in the dim light. they’re cool, a bit sticky in some places, and are shaped so oddly he really does have to wait for the light to adjust to see them right.

and he’s still confused.

“they’re brass knuckles, peter.” tammie says, because she doesn’t bother with the same nickname thing the rest of the southside does. z and her had a big fight about it, when he first started getting into it with the serpents, where he called her a prissy bitch and she called him just like mom. they didn’t talk for a month, running sweet pea back and forth between them. but tammie is always called tammie, and z is always called z, and the world still turns. only sweet pea seems to be caught up in it still. half peter and half sweet pea. unsure where he really stands with it all.

“oh.” is all he ends up saying, trying to forget about the fact that the entire kitchen smells like iron and copper from the blood on the stitches and that z will probably face a lot more brass knuckles in the foreseeable future. 

“he said ‘oh’,” z says, then snorts, like it’s all just one big joke. z does that a lot. “those bitches sting, sweets. guy who gave me this-” he points at the open cut high on his cheek, “used em. then tossed them at me, told me to keep onto them. figured it’s a birthday gift.”

sweet pea doesn’t mention that his birthday isn’t until april, but he does say thank you, unsure what else to do. tammie and z share a smirk, like they’re amused at his antics. they do that a lot, because while tammie’s a prissy bitch sometimes, she’s still at least in high school, and can understand half the things z laughs about. can understand when sweet pea is what z laughs about. he shifts awkwardly, feeling out of place in the kitchen. 

“don’t rope peter into your crap, z.” tammie calls sweet pea ‘peter’ but calls z ‘z’, mainly because only mom could really get z’s name right-sounding. they all never bothered to learn, since he was going by z the minute he was passed around the white wyrm as a baby. 

“for the last time, tammie, he’s not fucking around with your kumbaya shit. gotta actually do shit to get shit done. right, sweets?” z looks at him levelly, daring him to disagree. sweet pea swallows roughly, eyes darting between his siblings. tammie on the floor, bloody hands and wide-eyes, drowning in a t shirt and leggings and looking up to z even though he just insulted her. z in the chair, in his new leathers, black and blue and missing part of his front tooth but with presence, with character. sweet pea knows already which one he wants to end up like, is supposed to end up like, but it still feels wrong. his heart is beating too fast. he feels like he just touched his tongue to cheap silverware, and it burns sour hot, making hot spit flood his mouth.

“yeah, tammie. the serpents do shit.” he says, hoping his voice doesn’t shake too much, but z doesn’t laugh, so he thinks it’s okay. z doesn’t laugh, but he grins all big, like his baby brother actually has some promise in him, and taps two knuckles on the table.

“you’re bad as shit, sweet pea. manuel’s brother cried when he joined, y’know.” z says, smile drooping a little. “i’m glad you’re gonna be alright.” it’s as genuine as z’s ever gonna get. tammie took a break from stitching to get another sip of scotch, too, so sweet pea can even see his face. z looks a little more scared, a little more seventeen and less guardian of two. sweet pea swallows again.

“no need to lose your tits over it, z. i’m not some chick.” he says in a rush, even though tammie hates it when he uses that kind of languages, and he grabs the brass knuckles and runs to his corner of the living room before his brother can react, or pretend to brush it off.

he wonders if that night will ever stop playing on loop in his mind, making his chest tighten and face go red with embarrassment.

(iii.)

“damn, sweet pea, look at you with your  _ northside  _ gig. don’t forget us when you’re eating quinoa meals up here.” toni winks at him in the checkout. behind her are fangs, switz, and pizado, all out of place in the northside grocery with their serpent jackets and glancing over their shoulder every two seconds like they’re about to get thrown out. she’s only buying two packs of gum, because she clearly only came to rib sweet pea about working on the other side of the tracks, but hey, it’s work wherever he can get it.

“the express lane works for anyone with less than ten items, ma’am.” he says sweetly, showing all his teeth with his grin. toni just stares at him, but fangs laughs, and fangs’ laugh makes sweet pea’s words worth saying. or something. he doesn’t really think that, he guesses, just feels it sometimes, when he gets lost in the crinkle of fangs’ eyes or the way he doubles over for the absolute stupidest shit. sweet pea gets lost in those things a lot, and he’d ask for a map, but reading letters is hard enough without all those screwy symbols and shit.

“well, sir, i think you’ll find we have more than ten items to check out,” toni says with a grin, raising her arms to gesture behind her to the other serpents with her. fangs pulls out a bag of clothespins and a pretty woman dvd from the clearance box, switz pulls out a pack of kosher sausage, and pizado has six packs of instant ramen in his arms. 

sweet pea glares.

toni smirks.

fangs, the easy whore for humor he is, is trying and failing to keep from laughing. 

“ain’t even that funny, jackass.” sweet pea says, ringing up the clothespins, but he can’t bring himself to put heat behind his words when they’re directed at fangs. “now you’re all getting plastic, because i’m gonna need shit to suffocate you with once my shift ends.”

the serpents laugh their way out of the store, and the checkout manager chastises sweet pea for “poor customer service.”

the northside gig doesn’t stick.

(iv.)

he didn’t go to the hospital after he fell on his wrist. he shoved away birdbrain trying to examine it, laughed off toni’s concern, and probably made some quick joke to get back at seth for losing his shit over it.

even though it hurt to shift his wrist even a little, and it was turning a frightening shade of purple, sweet pea couldn’t fucking go to a hospital. he knew it was too expensive, knew how hospital bills had fucked over the juarezes and the joneses and the jacksons. he couldn’t do that to z or tammie. so he forced his wrist straight, ignored the pain, and walked home early by himself.

he immediately went to bed in his corner of the room so tammie couldn’t see it during dinner and z wouldn’t see it when he got home from work. at dawn he looted one of z’s big sweatshirts, so long on him it covered his purple wrist, and ate breakfast.

“you feelin okay, peter?” z asks over breakfast, when he noticed sweet pea trying and failing to eat right-handed while gently resting his left in his lap. sweet pea always wrote right-handed, ate and pitched left-handed, and generally freaked out everyone he knew with this talent, but z thought it was cool, so sweet pea treasured it. z didn’t really think most things about him were ‘cool’. 

“yeah, z. got a leftover headache from hanging out with the lamarres.” he says, rushing over his own excuse before z can ask for one. his most common mistake while lying to this day. but z had a shift until four in the morning, and just work up at seven to walk sweet pea to school, so he doesn’t have the energy to notice.

“that’s fair.” he says through a yawn. “now get your shit or you’ll be late, and we aren’t sending you to school for nothing.”

“you’re not the ones sending me to school,” sweet pea fires back, because he learned from fangs' foster dad two days ago about the government, and why they’re to blame for half of everything going on, including school. z just cuffs him and knocks his left shoulder.

he bit the inside of his cheek until it bled, and walked to school with copper in his mouth while z complained at pussy bitches at work.

(v.)

jughead jones is a fucking lunatic.

sweet pea thinks he knew that before they actually met, because the asshole was fp’s kid, and you couldn’t be fifty percent fp and come out with all your screws in place, is all. the serpent families who lived in sunnyside could attest to this, always catching lil forsythe jr jr staring at shit for no reason, or on the roof of the jones’ trailer typing away because he got the best service there. sweet pea already knew he was weird, is the point.

he just didn’t know he was batshit crazy.

“you’re doing more homework than you have to, is what you’re fucking saying.” sweet pea says, trying to make sense of it. it’s early on a saturday morning, way earlier than sweet pea would usually wake up, but his new shift starts at twelve and he has to look fresher than his northside coworkers could dream of or else he’ll be knocking on neighbor’s doors like some dickens orphan again. he’s at pop’s, with jones, because the skinny freak eats nothing but diner food for three meals a day then lives off a grain of salt for the next week, or something. it’s a little weird without toni, or fangs, or even one of jones’s annoying northside friends to keep them company, but it’s also nice. nice just to be here with jones, in some uncomfortably comfortable silence while they both shovel hashbrowns in their mouths. 

“you’re not listening,” jones says, like somebody’s fucking mom when they ask her for something the third time, “it’s just for the cash. i don’t  _ like  _ writing five thousand words for some shitty assignment copy pasted from a public domain creative writing website.” sweet pea shrugs. it still sounds like just doing more work to him, because there’s no way whatever those northside under-evolved (insult courtesy of toni)  weirdos can bother paying enough for it to be worth it. and he says as much.

and then jones tells sweet pea the figure.

“bullshit.” sweet pea says, easy as shit, because jones is bluffing.

jones opens his messages, shows sweet pea the most recent text from some dickhead named moose. he’s not bluffing.

“listening now?” he asks, like he hadn’t just shocked the hashbrowns out of sweet pea’s mouth. he grumbles moodily, never one to admit defeat to a kid like jones, but he thinks jones must mistake it for concession, because he smirks around a bite of pop’s pancakes, cocking his eyebrows up at the same time he wraps his lips around the fork.

sweet pea swallows. 

“sure.” 

(vi.)

sweet pea’s first memory is oddly specific. most of his mind has muddled together, blurry images that he knows logically must have happened, or oddly sharp memories he just can’t place in time. his oldest memory (he thinks) he knows exactly.

sometime in spring of 2004. sweet pea must have just turned four. his dad and mom still lived together in the one-story house he lived in most of his life. z was starting middle school and away for some soccer team game, and tammie was at a sleepover, so it was just him and his mom in the house.

mom, on the phone with grandma, convincing her everything was okay and that she didn’t need to visit, yes she was raising her boys right, yes tammie’s helping out plenty, yes they’re learning enough about their culture (none), etc, etc. body draped over it like she was too bothered to hold herself upright, ends of her sundress barely brushing her calves where it was too short for her long body. her hair had been down, long and dark and thick, brushing past her waist in tight waves where it had been braided for too long. with her denim overshirt tied around her waist, bare feet in the kitchen, and floral hairband, she looked like some sort of seventies housewife came to life.

and what sweet pea remembers exactly, down to the moment, is when she stopped trailing her eyes lazily over the grocery list to look up at him. sweet pea had been sitting on the island in the kitchen, probably doing something stupid like trying to eat his own foot (z had told him many times he was a stupid baby). her brown eyes met his. and for one moment, with the dark sunset framing his mom’s back, she had smiled wide, corners of her wide mouth tucking up into her cheeks like rabbits into their burrows. they pushed up to crinkle her eyes, twinkling at her baby on the counter. she smiled genuinely, with her whole face, and right at sweet pea. grandma could probably hear her grin over the phone, traveling through the yellow cord twisted around her finger all the the way to san francisco.

(vii.)

sweet pea sometimes feels things that he knows he shouldn’t.

when he thinks about his eighth grade pre-algebra teacher, mr. jackson. when he glances at fangs’ jaw, or hands, or eyes, or arms, or collarbones, for a moment too long. when someone writes  _ fag  _ on the locker next to his and he spends the rest of the day skipping school and staring at nothing. when he hears the radio, tuned to the community college station, between the soundcloud indie rap and mainstream pop, when it’s three am and there’s nothing else to listen to except  _ i thought you were my boyfriend _ in a decidedly male voice and wants to tear his ribs open just to get some air in his lungs.

it’s not that sweet pea has a problem with gays, or whatever. toni made it pretty clear in the summer she turned fourteen that anyone who did would have a tough time remaining her friend, before she kissed tiny trixie in a game of truth or dare and ended up dating her entirely through text for a week until they broke up before they had an actual date. sweet pea suggests a lot of the people he knows are just as-- as  _ fluid  _ as toni is, too, because he has eyes. and isn’t there a sense for this sorta thing? sweet pea doesn’t have a problem with gays, or lesbians, or whatever, is the point.

it’s just him.

sweet pea isn’t gay. he isn’t different. he’s grown up (and  _ up, _ over six feet up) knowing that people like him didn’t just get to decide these things-- that they could just fuck around town with some guy as  _ their guy _ and it’d be okay. this is real life. 

sweet pea has to be there for his family, tammie and z and toni and fangs, and he can’t do that if he’s not a guy who  _ does shit to get shit done, _ like his brother. if he’s preoccupied with like,  _ boys  _ or something, and not with making sure everyone knows he’s never without a blade and will fuck you up if you mess with his people. he knows that people don’t trust joaquin for shit ever since it got out that his latest ‘mission’ was just to get in with sheriff keller’s son. sweet pea can’t be reduced to some-- some pussy honeypot incapable of anything else, even if he knows that’s not what joaquin is. he’s contradicting himself.

it’s just. different for him. somehow. so he doesn’t let himself stare at fangs, he keeps his eyes the  _ fuck  _ up in the locker room, and is probably a little more stiff around joaquin than normal, just in case. he pushes down on his own chest so hard he forces himself to take deep breaths whenever that pain, that tightness comes back, and forces a laugh when someone makes a joke about a gay guy in medical school, guess what he’s there for?

he kinda doesn’t let himself feel anything, because it’s easier than eliminating just the one. when you fix a car, you have to stop it to isolate the problem. 

and sweet pea thinks, staring at fangs’ outstretched legs on his sofa instead of his english essay, he has a problem.

(viii.)

he gets home from school one day and his brother is drunk. tammie texted him earlier that she was heading out with some study group, and that sweet pea should probably do the same. she doesn’t call him peter that much, anymore. he thinks she gave up when he started asking about the serpents last week, before eighth grade ended. he’s fifteen now, he’s old enough to join, basically, knows there’s gang members who’ve been running with the serpents since they were twelve. sweet pea needs to join the serpents, because z joined the serpents, and without them who knows where sweet pea would be.

still doesn’t make tammie happy about it, calls it ‘hypermasculine horseshit’ right to z’s face and doesn’t flinch when he tells her to shut up or leave. tammie’s enrolled in a community college in greendale, now. probably going to move out soon. sweet pea doesn’t want to admit how scared this makes him feel, because he’s pretty much grown, and men don’t feel scared when their prissy sisters decide to move out and take their stick in their ass with them.

but he digresses. z’s drunk in there, and sweet pea gets uncomfortable with the conversations z starts when he’s drunk, so he considers calling toni or fangs or just heading down to the wyrm to see if anyone’s interested in hanging out. but he remembers that he has actual work he should maybe do, if he doesn’t wanna repeat another year, and that the only things he’ll find outside the apartment are distractions. 

so he goes in.

z really is drunk, is the first thing he thinks, because the apartment absolutely reeks and the bottle of jack daniels on the table is one sip away from empty, and there’s only half of a six pack left on the kitchen table. the second thing he thinks is that z really is drunk, because his older brother is sitting on the floor with a family photo album out. and a lighter.

“the fuck are you doing?” he shouts, voice croaky with that fucking  _ voice change _ thing people were on about, before he rushes over awkwardly, yanking the album out of his brother’s hands and tossing it (too roughly) as far away as possible. z barely reacts except to move the lighter to a bottom corner of the photo in his hands, pressing the flame gently to tammie’s smiling, nine year old, face. sweet pea stares in shock. and anger. a whole lot of fucking anger.

he snaps in front of z’s face. no reaction. shifts through the pile of photos scattered on the floor like a fucking madman, seeing the same image over and over again. z and tammie. mom and maybe dad and maybe grandma and maybe no one. all of them with tammie’s face scorched out with the lighter. he looks up to see z press the lighter against a photo of all three of them, from when sweet pea was really just a baby.

he snaps.

tears the photo out of z’s hand. this finally seems to move something in him, because he levels sweet pea with a drunken glare that shoots right into his biggest make big brother happy parts. sweet pea almost doesn’t fucking care.

“give that shit to me-- the fuck is wrong with you? you finally goin batshit on us?” sweet pea asks, trying to force z’s other hand open around the lighter. z clenches his fingers, anger awakening in him slowly, like dial up internet. pay thirty dollars for thirty minutes of guilt and anger. sweet pea doesn’t give a shit. he finally gets the lighter out of his brother’s hands, throughs it across the room, into the kitchen section. he hopes it went under the oven, where it’s impossible to get shit back, because he knows z likes that lighter especially and he’s feeling especially petty.

“don’t come in here telling me what to do,” z slurs, grabbing sweet pea on his left wrist, his bad wrist, and slinging him towards the wall. it doesn’t work like he wanted, but it gives z enough time to fumble for the picture and get it back in his hands drenched in booze sweat, “comin in here, fuckin… ungrateful pussy.”

sweet pea’s neck feels red hot, with shame or anger he doesn’t know. it might as well be the same thing, in his life.

“you’re lucky i came in here before you drank yourself sick, dumbass.” he says bitterly. z just rolls his fucking eyes, and-- and he--

he rips up the picture in his hands, of him and sweet pea and tammie, and he takes extra care to spit on the part where tammie’s head used to be. 

sweet pea slaps him. he can hear his heartbeat, his blood flow, everything in his head, like all his body’s internal parts are working together to keep him here, to keep him angry. he doesn’t think he’s ever felt like this before, so mad he understands what people mean when they say seeing red. z looks about the same, by the time sweet pea’s shock at his own actions leaves him his brother’s had time to process too, and process that into anger. before z can stand up, sweet pea kicks him in the shoulder, enough to topple his drunk ass over.

“you’re disgusting,” sweet pea seethes, though he doesn’t mean it, or maybe didn’t know he meant it until this moment. his words feel like acid dripping out of his mouth, with the intent to hurt and hurt  _ bad. _ “tearing up me and tammie’s shit cause you had to go on a fucking bender-- one bad day at work and you’re no better than  _ mom,  _ making me come in and take care of you. making tam--”

“she’s fucking  _ leaving  _ us.” z roars, voice hoarse and rough like gravel from the drink and from anger. sweet pea thinks he might be crying. 

he’s never seen his brother cry before. it feels like something big has just shifted under his feet, and he can’t catch his balance, and now the sweat is cooling and getting tacky on the back of his next and his heart is picking up and all that anger pushing him forward is now just shame, and confusion, telling him to fucking run and never come back.

“who is?” sweet pea whispers, asks, even though between the note on the door and the burned out photos and z on the floor he thinks he can guess. z just sobs, sobs something like its being hooked out of him and pulled out on the floor, bloody and grotesque and showing sweet pea all the ugly parts of his brother he never ever wanted to see.

but now he is.

carefully, he lowers himself to the floor, knocking the burned photos out of his way with his foot. he squats next to z, only an inch shorter than him and eight years younger, but still responsible here somehow. he kind of collapses halfway on his way to the floor, knees hitting the hard wood roughly. tammie’s leaving. tammie, sweet pea’s partner in crime, who called him peter and convinced z to let him watch girly shit and let him borrow her cassettes with a knowing look, who laughed with him about z and his macho friends in secret, who would let him braid her hair and tell him it was all gonna be alright when his brother was too pussy to.

no one’s gonna do that for him now.

he puts a hand on the back of his brother’s shoulder, pulling him into his chest awkwardly. he had always been so much younger than both of them, had known that they were closer to each other than they’d probably ever be to him. tammie leaving is a betrayal to sweet pea, but to z it’s a part of his soul being wrenched away.

“greendale?” sweet pea asks, and z nods into his shoulder, boozy breath filling his nostrils and making him nauseated. “oh.” 

z snorts against him “‘oh’ is what he says. least i know you’re not gonna leave for no fuckin college.” and then he’s back at it again, coughing and sobbing onto sweet pea’s fifteen year old shoulder like some baby who didn’t get a meal. sweet pea doesn’t even have the energy to feel hurt, just defeated. it’s not like he doesn’t know it’s true.

“fuck college.” sweet pea says, instead of ‘fuck you’, which is kind of what he means, and instead of ‘it’s gonna be alright’, which is kind of what he should say. but sweet pea can’t be tammie. he’s not a sister and friend, he’s a brother and barely ranked above burden, probably. he’s never gonna be able to say ‘it’s gonna be alright’ without laughing. he’s never gonna be tammie.

z finally pulls back, eyes bloodshot and red rimmed. he looks like a monster. he’s exactly what haunts sweet pea’s worst dreams.

“fuck tammie.” z says, like he’s daring sweet pea to disagree. he’s too uncomfortable to say anything, distrusting the sudden mood swings his brother’s going through. he hopes it’s a drunk z thing, but he knows it isn’t. z is always switching between angry and sad and over the moon happy for weeks before more weeks of lying in bed and spitting at people on the street and having to be pulled out to work. tammie used to be the one to get him out of bed, but now.

well. sweet pea doesn’t want to think about it. he’s been silent thinking about it too long, now, because z pushes himself back, leaning against the back of the couch and still sitting on the floor. 

“she fucking left us. sweet pea. left her fuckin… flesh and blood for greendale. for college.” z’s working himself up again, and sweet pea tries to lose himself in getting worked up too. but he can’t bring himself to be mad at tammie. can’t bring himself to think that if he could, he would too. “she’s fake shit to us now. fake shit. we’re,  _ we’re  _ for real now, right, sweets?”

sweet pea thinks about how he’s different than z in a few quite fundamental ways he’s a little bit afraid to think about. he thinks about how his anger will start fast and fizzle out and he’ll regret it, but z will brood and boil for days and months at a time, and how he’s not surprised tammie didn’t wanna deal with it. he thinks about how neither of them have held a job for more than a few months at a time. 

he thinks of fangs’ hands. mr. jackson. the feeling of  _ other  _ and  _ different  _ that’s formed a chasm in between sweet pea and every other guy he knows, even if they haven’t noticed it. sweet pea can’t reach across that chasm to his brother, but he can try.

to pretend it doesn’t exist.

“yeah.” he swallows. “we’re for real.”

(ix.)

in school that day, sweet pea keeps the sleeve pulled over his ugly wrist, which had only swollen up more in the night. it’s a disgusting, pulsating purple color, like a plum that’s rotted itself away. he tries to laugh and joke with toni and fangs, but his wrist sends sharp pain up his entire arm every time he even tries to move it, and it’s probably obvious he’s not really into it.

first half of the day is fine. then lunch is awkward, where he usually eats with his left hand but has to use his right, and ends up elbowing two kids in his grade on accident and narrowly avoids actually getting into a physical fight for the second time this month. but lunch ends smoothly, when sweet pea mysteriously ‘forgets’ to come back after he dumps his tray in the trash and hides in the bathroom, holding a freezing cold wet paper towel to his wrist to try and stop the pain.

it doesn’t work, really, but sweet pea’s fine. he’s seen a kid get stabbed, he’ll be fine with a bruised wrist for a minute.

he thinks this, he really does, until it’s time for gym. and sweet pea, who set the class record for most pull ups both times in second grade, and is four inches taller than anyone else in their grade, is always pitcher during free time. 

he gets up to the mound, forces his hand open to hold the ball, counts down from three and--

one 

two

three

his left arm snaps back, and it all goes dark.

(x.) 

a year after tammie leaves, sweet pea drinks a beer and watches a movie with his brother. something about pilots. z jokes, near the end, about how crazy it’d be if the two guys ended up fucking, after all that ‘faggy sports shit’. sweet pea laughs with him, offers to go for a run and see if the bodega around the corner will give them some instant popcorn for free.

“you fucking better, sweets, i’ll never forgive you if you leave me with this gay shit to come back empty-handed.” sweet pea laughs again, grabs his jacket on his way out the door, makes it to the lobby before he starts shaking.

he screams as soon as the car door shuts.

(xi.)

when he wakes up, he’s in the hospital. the sheets feel like construction paper, but at least he’s still in his clothes. there’s only a moment of freaking out before he remembers what happened, he thinks-- the memory of his entire class watching him on his way to the ground might not be actually real, but it burns the back of his neck like it might as well be.

the hospital room is empty, so he goes back to sleep. no point in being awake, really.

(xii.)

sweet pea kisses a girl for the first time in a game of spin the bottle. it’s toni’s fourteenth birthday party, even though her uncle organised it and mainly invited just his college friends. fangs and sweet pea quickly staged an escape from the twenty-somethings inside, leading their scrawny group of freshmen out into the september air to gather around the fire pit between toni’s uncle’s and his neighbours’ houses. since they’re all freshmen, and think they’re cool because they drank like one can of beer at a party and played it up, someone breaks out an empty bottle they found on the sidewalk. 

“birthday girl goes first,” sweet pea says mockingly, urging toni on, but she doesn’t complain any more when the bottle lands on pizado, who she’s not really into but has been ranting to sweet pea about the physics of his hair for about a week. pizado goes to arianna, who goes to bottlenose, who goes to sara, who goes to fangs, who goes to trixie, who goes to

well. 

who goes to sweet pea.

fangs wolf whistles, and toni tries not to look awkward about her best friend kissing her former one-week girlfriend, and sweet pea tries not to show how freaked out he is. he’s ignoring the chasm, but he can feel it widening, shifting in between them until he can barely see the firelight across the gap.

but that’s all internal sweet pea. external sweet pea, who has seen countless movies where the hero gets the girl, and has seen probably too much of z kissing girls sweetly at the door and then saying ‘never calling her again, sweets, sheesh, lemme give you some advice--’, external sweet pea just leans over pizado’s lap next to him to take trixie’s tiny face in his hands, and press his lips to hers.

it doesn’t feel like anything, really. it’s not some big moment, his first kiss, just his lips pressed to hers, and he can taste cocoa butter vaseline. it overwhelms him for just a second when she presses back, and he pulls away, forcing himself to smirk at her.

“you in love now, trix?” he asks over the beat of his heart, which is in his chest and stomach and neck because that was  _ it, _ wasn’t it? it proves you don’t feel anything. you’re real fucked up.

trixie laughs, and says something that makes the rest of the circle laugh, but sweet pea can’t hear them, the same fucking thing blocking his throat sticking up in his ears and eyes too. everything is blurry, grey, and it’s probably an hour by the time fangs nudges him and says, hey, you’re my ride home, jackass. you didn’t drink too much?

and sweet pea probably has, because the buzzing in his head is preferable to the tiny shitty angry voice telling him how much he failed, tonight, at being normal, at being  _ real  _ with his brother. z would have rocked trixie’s world with one kiss, laughed about it, and gone on with his day like she was just a snack he’d forget about in a minute. z would have been like james dean, or river phoenix, or fucking dicaprio, swooping in to save the girl and take a drink and laugh about it. but sweet pea’s not good enough to be like that. sweet pea has his chasm and this dark fucking pit of dread in his stomach he’s been pushing down since sixth grade.

“i can hold two cans of beer, unlike some people.” is all sweet pea says, even though it was more like four or five and he’s not necessarily a heavyweight drinker. fangs looks at him oddly, because fangs and toni can always see right through him, and he looks like he’d say more if he didn’t wanna ruin toni’s party. 

“okay, mr hardship license, don’t get cocky.” is all he says, but he keeps a hand on sweet pea’s shoulder until they reach the car, and every nerve in him feels like it’s on fire. he hates himself, and hates fangs’ big hands on his shoulder, and how just a friendly touch makes him feel more than kissing the third hottest girl in their grade (according to those dickhead ghoulies, who posted a list). he’s sick.

“fuck you,” he says, and he means  _ i’m sorry for freaking out _ and  _ please forgive me _ and  _ god, teach me to be like you, i want to be so bad, _ but he doesn’t say any of them, because teenage boys don’t go around saying stuff like that if they wanna do shit to get shit done.

(xiii.)

the first time he sees his mother high isn't he last time. he’s almost nine, spending most of his time with ‘cousin’ bayani and his wife, who probably only helped him because he’s the kid of the one other asian they know in all the southside. he knows things are bad at home, usually only getting picked up by z at eleven pm or later, once their mom has fallen asleep and his older siblings have worked off their shifts.

but bayani and his wife are on vacation, so sweet pea rides the bus straight home, listening to the older kids throw shit and say words he doesn’t understand until they pull up to their little one story on the outskirts of town. tammie works right after school, and z has soccer practice, so it’s just sweet pea and his mom.

mom, on the cell phone frantically, biting her nails to the blood and dropping the burner as soon as sweet pea comes in.

“peter, baby, where have you been, i’ve been looking everywhere for you, you’re such a bad child, worrying your mama like that.” she says manically, wrapping her rail thin arms right around sweet pea’s shoulders so tightly, too tight--

“it’s just three fifty, mom, i’m home right on time.” sweet pea forces out, grabbing his mom’s arms and almost circling them with his fingers by accident when he prys himself out of them. “it’s okay.”

“it’s three fifty..?” she asks, dreamily, confused, until she looks at the microwave clock. she groans, a high-pitched barely human sound, before she sinks to the floor. “oh no, baby, nonono, it was five a minute ago, wasn’t it, you were gone for a whole day, oh no no.” she murmurs to herself, hands raking up her face, pulling at her own hair, before dragging back down her face. they catch on her lower eyes, pulling down to show him the reds. brown eyes meet his. her pupils are impossibly small, pinpricks in a sea of dark brown iris. 

sweet pea desperately wants to go, wants to run away until his mom is back home, because this can’t be her. mom is warm sunlight, long legs graceful as she sways, on the phone. cord wrapped around her finger. but sweet pea can’t go. he can see her, right there, under the layers of clothing and sweaty face and thinning hair, just begging him to help her.

so he puts his backpack down gingerly, crawls across the floor to where she’s crouched down, head buried in her knees. he tries to meet her eyes.

“it’s okay, i forgive you,” he tries out, gently, because eight year old sweet pea didn’t know enough to learn that some people will just ruin everything if they think they’ll be forgiven. when mom doesn’t look up, he wraps an arm around her. she’s tall, long like him and z and tammie all turned out to be, but she still fits under just one of his childish arms. “it’s gonna be alright.”

a month later, mom goes to rehab in greendale for the first time, and they all stay at bayani’s until she comes back. then she goes again. comes back. goes again. the fourth time, bayani suggests gently to z that the galazaras will ignore that he’s not a legal adult, and let them stay i a two bedroom cheap. he’ll help with rent for a while, too.

mom goes to rehab for the fifth time and doesn’t come back.

sweet pea stops believing everything is gonna be alright, and learns that you have to do shit to get shit done, instead.

(xiv.) 

“you listen to such weird shit, dude.” toni says, flipping through jones’ cd collection. they’re all camped out in his trailer, waiting for the rain to stop so they can go the quarry like they planned. they would be at the quarry right now, if toni and jones hadn’t outvoted him and fangs on the ‘swimming during a lightning storm is fun as shit’ issue. toni said if they went swimming in this weather, natural selection would be contractually obligated to take them out, and jones somehow understood that nonsense and laughed at it, which doesn’t upset sweet pea, not at all, what? it’s not his fault that toni thinks she can get away with her weird ass sense of humor now that there’s another jimmy neutron headass in their little circle. not that he considers jones a part of their little circle.

but he is in his trailer, flipping through fleetwood mac and paul simon and blank, obviously illegally burned cds of more modern shit and finding new things to laugh at every second. jones is lucky as shit to live by himself, so he can play his obscure queen songs at three in the morning and get away with it, and sweet pea tells him so smartly, which a couple of ‘asshole’s and ‘as shit’s in there to keep his brand up.

jones just snorts, flipping the page on some cd booklet he’d never read before and somehow managing to make the movement look pretentious. “at least i didn’t have some half-baked emo phase.” toni chokes on air, and fangs nearly slams his head into the couch cushion, because he’s easy to make laugh and overly dramatic in the best way. sweet pea whips his head around to glare at his two former best friends.

“which one of you is a rat? or is it two fakes in this house-- sorry, i meant shithole-- tonight?” he asks, menacing as possible. fangs manages to keep his expression stable for about a second before he laughs again, sweet pea trying valiantly to stop tracing the long line of his neck when the throws his head back. toni just snorts, deadpan as always.

“relax. jughead being such a stereotype he has  _ four  _ different stevie nicks cds is way worse than you pirating fall out boy for a month.” toni says with a roll of her eyes, switching her attention back to her new fling’s instagram for a second before she realizes what she said. “oh, shit--”

“what stereotyp-- shit, sorry man, i didn’t know.” fangs says all in a rush, going from confused to tense and awkward. sweet pea feels his soul get a little crushed on the inside, even though he’d been stomping on its stupid hopeful ass for a long time now. besides, jones looks way more uncomfortable than sweet pea should be right now.

“it’s all good.” he says, sarcasm lacing his tone. he’s making fun of fangs for something, sweet pea thinks, and for a moment he feels like he should know what, but. sweet pea made his choice. “i’m not gonna call the gay gestapo.”

“so you are queer.” sweet pea says at the same time fangs says “there’s a gay gestapo?-- oh, yeah keller’s kid,” and there’s a brief moment where jones can’t seem to compute two weird pop culture references for each of those statements at onces. also, looks uncomfortable as shit, like he’s about to melt his ass into the couch and never come out.

(ha, come out)

toni steps in. “jughead’s not really-- i was just saying that--” she says, and toni’s usually a good liar, but she’s never given a shit if people knew she wasn’t straight or not, so making excuses for it isn’t really her forte. she looks so mad and sad at herself, and it makes sweet pea unreasonably angry that she’s beating herself up over jughead, because if this had been sweet pea or fangs or anyone she would of just laughed it off with an apology. but jughead’s different than the kids down here, who can really take a joke and handle people getting in their nasty business, because they know everyone around them is used to it. no shame. jones spent too much time around rich kids. got unsocialized, or whatever, and has been used to hiding unsavoury things about him just to keep his footing. sweet pea’d feel sorry for him if it wasn’t making him a paranoid bitch half of the time.

“it’s okay, toni, i’m not mad.” jones says, just genine enough to settle toni’s nerves. its more realness than sweet pea’s ever seen out of the guy. they share a tight smile, like they’re part of some conspiracy. sweet pea wonders if jones’ presence is why toni hasn’t been complaining to him and fangs about her big gay problems as much. he wonders if jones gets it, if jones has insane crushes on unattainable guys and complains to toni about indescribable feelings too. he wonders if jones ever stops himself from staring at boys’ hands.

sweet pea stops that train of thought right there.

“so, jones is gay,” he starts, even though he doesn’t really have any clarification on whether jones really likes guys, or girls, or both, or neither, “it doesn’t excuse  _ this  _ shit.” sweet pea holds up a cd marked simply as ‘bjork to educate archie’.

jones laughs like it’s punched out of him, takes the cd from sweet pea, and starts in on a story about the newest rich girl in town, a b&e to the school library, and a lot of discussions about female artists. toni gets most of the references, and fangs likes anything that mentions that veronica girl that’s shown up around here like cruella de vil asking for dog pelts, so they both enjoy the story.

and jones talks with his hands, in small, aborted gestures he’s used to not making, so sweet pea doesn’t mind it that much either. doesn’t mind his friends at all.

(xv.)

when he wakes up next, toni and fangs and his brother and his sister are all there, in a circle around his bed. he’s a little more alert, and tammie tells him it’s because he’s not doped up anymore.

after the usual reassurances (it’s nothing serious, we’ve got some help from fp with the bills, you actually looked metal as sh-- sorry, crap, falling down in gym, dude), he just wants to go home. everything is better at home, even if ‘home’ is just a two bedroom apartment above a dry cleaners where they all take turns sleeping on the couch and eating chef boyardee. it all seems like it’s gonna be alright.

before z signs him out (z had turned 18 about a week ago, sweet pea thinks he remembers), the nurse offers him a pen to get people to sign his cast. he blinks, having forgotten that a cast even existed, since he was asleep while it was being set and didn’t pay any mind to it since.

“ha, seems like nurse dina beat your friends to it, huh peter?” the nurse says, winking at him over the top. he wants to tell her that he’s ten, not five, but he’s too busy trying to figure out what the fuck she means.

then he sees it. everyone but tammie laughs, because tammie is weird and coos at this sort of thing.

on the cast, in red marker, in some loopy handwriting of someone overly happy with their life, is ‘get well soon, sweet pea’, followed by a little smiley face.

“try showing off your injury with that shit, ‘sweet pea’,” z says around a laugh, clapping his younger brother on the back, before he goes to draw a big ‘z’ in pen over almost half the cast.

fangs draws some fangs, because he’s pretty much voluntarily illiterate but a good artist, and toni squeezes in both her name and half of ‘peener’ before tammie stops her. tammie just draws a little stick figure with some swings in a tiny corner, followed by a ‘t’, because that’s the kind of annoying sister she was.

but all peter is looking at is sweet pea, in bright handwriting, near the top of his cast.

it makes him feel like everything’s gonna be alright.

**Author's Note:**

> sorry for projecting so hard onto a character the binding of reality snapped! but i hope you enjoy this bs, which is really just an excuse for me to preach stevie nicks gay jughead and also cry. this is my journey. if you have ANYTHING to say about this, including questions such as "where are your capital letters?" "why is there no resolution?" and "this doesn't make any sense?" please comment im really sitting here on my week off like nobody lyrics on repeat.


End file.
